Welcome to masterWiki: stolen from MasterClass, republished as wikiHow | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to masterWiki: stolen from MasterClass, republished as wikiHow

masterwiki.how

262 pointswhereistimbo81 comments

Looking at the bottom of the page, this is part of some overall large marketing campaign. A lot of the other stuff is also labelled "theft" : I'm not totally sure it is; the point of the project appears to be to commit almost-IP theft, but in most cases they seem to go right up to the line but do not cross it. (E.g. shirts with corporate logos / brands cut up and barely recognizable, that kind of thing).

There's an app, there's a FOMO "drop" list, there's some larger thing at play here. Can't tell if it's something authentic / art-related, or if someone is just trying to build another brand.

Edit: indeed, this is some new brand / business: "WHO WE ARE MSCHF Product Studio is an internet company. We operate online store(s), create content, communicate with our fans and customers through texts, email and social channel(s), and occasionally promote our products and services both online and offline"

MSCHF (presumably 'mischief') is just another edgy shopify stunt.

New-ish but making noise for a while.

Here's a Business Insider piece from Jan 2020 gives some background:

https://www.businessinsider.com/mschf-company-behind-viral-j...

And also mentions two rounds of funding totally $11.5m to that date.

This July article at the Verge details more drops:

https://www.theverge.com/21320127/mschf-products-jesus-shoes...

This also reads like marketing for them, lol

I can see that, apologies! Just trying to add more context, and I've been idly following what MSCHF has been doing -- but no insight into what the model is.

Yeah, I haven’t done any research but this feels like Masterclass themselves made or are responsible for this. The ‘how’s’ are only a small subset of their courses, less than an episode. The illustrations are high quality.

The production value is just too high for piracy.

I don't think Shopify is the right comparison.

Their entire "value proposition" seems to be along the lines of: here's how to do viral marketing with the meme economy.

I also get strong Warhol vibes from them.

Yeah; sorry - I didn't mean to imply it was from Shopify themselves, merely that Shopify is their platform. It's kind of like a pop up e-commerce thing for edgy stuff.

As others have pointed out, this is a pro(ject/duct) of a creative studio called MSCHF

https://mschf.xyz/

Their work satirizes art and commerce, usually simultaneously, often while still being both.

To me this project is about the absurdity of gatekeeping celebrity branded common-sense for $180, when it can more effectively be conveyed in the low-rent wikihow style for free.

If it’s just ”common-sense” there is nothing to ”gatekeep”. I (edit) don’t see in absurdity in Masterclass product. It is not worth for me, but not absurd in the least.

Yeah, I don't see anything absurd either. It's about the same price as a Netflix subscription. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that there exists an audience for Masterclass.

Well, many people seem to lack "common sense", of which everyone has their own definition. And absurdity is in the eye of the beholder.

I don't agree with what this company is doing, stealing content from a commercial product and making it free. But I can see they're making a point, as a kind of perfomance art and social criticism. They're brazen about its controversial nature, and perhaps the free content will benefit someone who doesn't have the means to access this knowledge.

It also makes me question, how will such knowledge production be funded, if not as (highly priced) commercial products? If everyone started stealing and giving away knowledge for free, how can it be sustainable? Is it even possible to "steal" knowledge? Well, yes, in the form of information/data - but, if it's digested and re-presented, as they have done here, does copyright extend to such works?

Perhaps their goal is to raise such questions in the audience.

I was referring to the celebrity’s name and reputation being a gate that’s being erected around what I believe, based on my personal experience with their content, is general common sense, best-practice sort of advice.

This isn’t my piece so I can’t say my opinions are 100% aligned with the creators intent, but going in loving the concept, I was disappointed by the lack of depth in the content... it’s a lot less a class taught by your hero, more like your professor scored a really cool guest lecturer.

> it can more effectively be conveyed in the low-rent wikihow style for free

Masterclass clearly has different goals. It isn't hard to guess that they are optimizing for something other than minimum cost per view.

the ramsey eggs are comical to me as a chef, someone who’s watched this actual masterclass, and someone who’s made an attempt to learn many famous chefs scrambled egg styles. (alton browns add mayo trick, worth a try!)

decadent ingredients with absurdly terse instructions, and when he yells at the kid, i died!

Don't leave us hanging with that, you've got a really unique viewpoint to share here! How did you find the masterclass overall, and what sort of things did you learn from the various scrambled egg styles you've tried?

Seconding!

I've hated almost every online celebrity scrambled egg recipe I've ever watched. I can't divorce them from that runny crap made from powdered eggs they serve at buffets.

I think what’s misleading is that there are so many different ways to both scramble eggs but also cook eggs in general that only are a function of these few things: heat, friction, and time. The ability for the proteins to do such different things totally based on your technique is unlike almost all other foods out there.

It sounds like you don’t like a soft scramble. That’s ok! You might want bigger curds or a harder scramble (not the same thing per se!). You can watch Jacques Pepin make an omelette that you might like (big curds), or I’m sure plenty of others out there with good instruction too.

“Celebrity chefs” are probably mostly teaching soft scrambles because you end up with a very silky rich product, and most people equate rich fatty velvety textured with “high end.” Ignore the Gordon Ramsey’s out there, they’re endless self promoters with oversized egos who take on the worst of toxic masculinity.

Yeah, I totally understand. I've messed around quite a bit with molecular gastronomy, have a couple sous vide devices etc, and have a few friends who are chefs. I'm just a toast-optional sort of guy. I couldn't imagine trying to eat that mess he concocts without toast.

You can eat super soft scrambled eggs with a fork pretty easily. Even if it looks like soup, it's still coagulated proteins that hold together more than you'd expect.

There's "can" and "desirable."

I'm not a fan of the texture by itself.

Surely people don't pay for the content with MasterClass, they pay for the hosts. That's how it's marketed, and they of course wouldn't use these presumably extremely expensive celebrities if they just wanted to create high quality content.

The premise is that you're learning from top people in each field. Sure, in some cases they are people who have been very successful at self-promotion in their field, but I don't remember seeing anyone on there who was there purely through self-promotion.

The target market is basically people who would have paid $20 for a book with the same content. To them, it's not a bad deal.

And it's mostly entertainment, maybe get some interesting insights, etc. from what I gather.

Presumably, people don't actually think they're going to learn screenwriting by listening to Aaron Sorkin talk about it or by watching Gordon Ramsay.

There's definitely a big entertainment component. I find these things very entertaining. I've also read several books on how to write a novel even though I have no interest in ever writing one. Why? I don't know.

Certainly the How to be an astronaut Masterclass is meant for pure enter/edutainment?

Well, that may be the pretext, but of course they are chosen because they are famous. People buying it justify it by saying they want to "learn" something, but as you say it would be much cheaper - and certainly more effective - to buy a book.

Compare this to Lynda or The Teaching Company. They both have amazingly high quality content, and choose teachers solely based on their ability to teach, not their fame. Lynda is focused on imparting directly applicable knowledge whereas TTC focused on serving the intellectually curious (these days they are inching ever closer to your typical airport self-help offering).

It seems like they are not just famous but experts. Some of the names are giant in their fields, but not household names. For music for example: "Danny Elfman", "Hans Zimmer", "Herbie Hancock", "Deadmau5" are all huge.

I haven't watched a master class, but they seem well produced and "aspirational" at least.

I have a friend who swears by the teaching company. I did a udemy into to Unreal engine that was oddly decent. But I like to do extension school classes that force me to show up with the threat of a grade.

The Deadmau5 intro video is entertaining (35,000,000 views!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtj6dDARgfQ

"If you are not naturally comfortable on stage, from my experience, you should try putting on a F#$!!$ helmet that covers your face.."

If it's really common-sense, by definition, it's not gatekept.

While I do think $180 is way higher than it should be, I also don't believe everything there can be conveyed as wikihow. Especially for the hands-on type of subject, I'd rather see actual people doing the demo in a video than read through vague text descriptions.

Satire works are brilliant, but sometimes it has the drawback of justifying everything with "well, it's satire". You didn't laugh? That's on you.

>when it can more effectively be conveyed in the low-rent wikihow style for free

Don't mind the few hundred dollar illstrations

I watched a few masterclass and honestly I don't see the point. It's more entertainment TV, and much less "class", nor "master" class.

I guess it's a bit like https://www.blinkist.com/ ? There's probably pretty great site idea in summarising popular YouTube videos and doing the same. Embed the video, pull out all the salient points and let me read them in 60 seconds as opposed to watching something for 35 minutes.

For anyone confused, this a parody from MSCHF.

> MSCHF isn’t a sneaker company. It rarely even produces commercial goods, and its employees are reluctant to call it a company at all. They refer to MSCHF, which was founded in 2016, as a “brand,” “group” or “collective,” and their creations, which appear online every two weeks, as “drops.”

> Many of those drops are viral pranks: an app that recommends stocks to buy based on one’s astrological sign (which some observers took seriously), a service that sends pictures of A.I.-generated feet over text, a browser extension that helps users get away with watching Netflix at work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/style/millennial-entrepre...

To me the name seems like an abbreviation for “mischief” aka “playful trouble maker”

That's exactly what it is.

I chuckled at the "How to Make Perfect Scrambled Eggs" with Gordon Ramsay.

Who adds sea urchin and white truffle to their scrambled eggs?

Gordon Ramsay

Dunno about white truffle and sea urchin, but I can attest that using good, actual truffle oil on it can be an inexpensive way to REALLY add to the flavor of it.

Agree with this, it's pretty awesome tweak.

I also use a bit of whole milk instead of butter to get a nice fluffy, creamy scramble.

I'm always surprised when people don't use a little milk in their scrambles/omelettes.

Black truffle salt is to date one of the biggest culinary discoveries I've made.

Truffle salt is generally easier to add to dishes than truffle oil (and truffle oil is, IIRC, easier to counterfeit)

Well I don't think they could sell an expensive masterclass for arguably the most simple dish or earth if it was not prepared by Gordon Ramsay using fancy condiments.

It's actually a cool lesson and the summarized version here has it completely wrong. While it is a simple dish, most people's eggs will taste better after the real lesson.

That's a joke. Gordon Ramsay's actual advice on how to make perfect scrambled eggs is actually much simpler. You can watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0

It's not a joke, that's his exact "Elevated Scrambled Eggs" receipe from the MasterClass:

https://i.imgur.com/jCuW6T8.jpg

I stand corrected. That is hilarious!

preview link with some reviews: https://www.masterclass.com/classes/gordon-ramsay-teaches-co...

> "Nobody is putting sea urchin on eggs. What is this?"

In Italy eggs and truffle is a standard combination, very often found in restaurant near truffle production regions.

Isn't this copyright violation?

Or am I just misunderstanding what copyright applies to?

Despite the branding, this isn’t actually a copy: it attempts to summarize each hours-long course into a handful of bullet points. That probably changes the expression enough that it’s original in the eyes of copyright law, and the underlying ideas are not subject to copyright.

IANAL, but I suspect they’d have a larger issue with using all of these celebrities’ names and likenesses without permission.

Maybe, but the fact that they attributed the pieces to those celebrities suggests they weren't very careful about legal boundaries. To say the least.

It's odd, because the content itself isn't actually very useful or any sort of "good" summary like a true cliffnotes type of thing — which should give them enough leeway to stay up and be fine. Yet, they're putting themselves right back in front of the gun: "We stole MasterClass' content..."

Props to whoever drew all those illustrations, they really took the time, that's probably 99% of the effort there.

> Props to whoever drew all those illustrations, they really took the time, that's probably 99% of the effort there.

Most likely the same freelance contractors as wikihow.

https://onezero.medium.com/we-finally-figured-out-who-makes-...

Sounds like a law school exam question about when it stops being parody and starts being deliberately confusing to consumers. Like if I sell Jock Doniels whiskey that’s only 10% alcohol, is that really a parody? Or the South Butt clothing brand.

As long as they don't quote it verbatim they are fine. You may write a blog post about what you learned in the class… The issue here is the scale at which they do it.

I don't have MasterClass so cannot confirm but it seems that at least parts of it are straight up parody e.g. How to Make Perfect Scrambled Eggs/step 13: Train as a chef in France

The content they're printing isn't really from the Master Class. It's someone's best guess as to the content with some satirical touches.

Before you cite copyright violations, I seriously think there’s a huge amount of over simplification in those content. The presentation is fantastically parodistic

The "How to Write a Thriller" guide, by renowned author 'Dan Brown', is spot-on:

https://masterwiki.how/courses/how-to-write-a-thriller/

Having taken some of the classes, they summarize them exceedingly well.

This actually makes me re-interested in the official Masterclasses

I'm an enthusiastic home cook. A friend of mine has a subscription and let me watch one of the cooking masterclasses from Massimo Bottura. The quality is pretty garbage. You're getting a very surface level look into a smattering of a chef's dishes, with really very little added in terms of commentary, technique or otherwise interesting content. If all of their other masterclasses are as shallow as that, it seems like a waste of money.

There is one about gardening. As I recall most of the course was the dude putting soil and plants in different kinds of drawers and old suitcases, and pointing out the need to add drainage holes and little feet.

One important thing to know is that each masterclass is essentially it’s own thing. Especially the early ones. They seem to have approached high-level people and said “we’ll do whatever you want”, so some people said they wanted to make garbage.

If you get the chance again, check out some of the other chefs to see of there’s one that really provides value.

Of course this is a MSCHF project. The instant I heard it I thought "this sounds like some sort of meme high art project."

First I want to point out, what is obvious, the point of MasterClass is those famous people taking to YOU. I don't think this in any way takes away from experience of MasterClass.

Did you see how fast site loads? With all slow-poke sites, this is refreshing to see and you don't see it every day.

This looks like an out of context marketing stunt.

Could someone link or describe the context?

From another comment: https://www.theverge.com/21320127/mschf-products-jesus-shoes...

The group behind it, MSCHF, is like a marketing art collective. A weird mixture between Banksy viral art and Warhol's insight into today's pop/meme culture.

This is similar to rage marketing. By using the word 'stolen', though they are technically not stolen, you are raising attention.

I remember White Moose Cafe giving outrageous replies to unhappy customers which lead to cult following and people just checking in for fun. Looks like they pivoted to a restaurant from a hotel since I last saw them couple of years ago: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteMooseCafe/

This... has to be copyright violation.

Looks like satire to me

That's arguable enough that a lawyer would find a case here, I'd wager.

You're probably right and that is a sad world we're in.

A lawyer would agree that the longer both lawyers talk the richer both of them get.

Summaries aren't copyright violations, unless a significant part of the original is copied verbatim.

You can publish a book summary and even quote the book a few times without being accused of copyright violation. Same goes for online courses, as it is the case here.

They can republish stuff all they want imo, but these are not wikiHow articles unless you are cooperating with the company WikiHow (it's a brand). I'd be most afraid of their reaction .

Does wikiHow have a patent on ugly clipart and low-effort content?

Probably not, but they definitely have a registered trademark.

So they change "republished as wikiHow" to "republished in the wikiHow style" and they're golden.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com